The One Thing Charles Krauthammer Got Right: Do We Really Have An Epidemic Of Transgender People Being Evil In Bathrooms Across The Country?

Better still does that ‘epidemic’ warrant superseding, supplanting transgender rights to safe public, school restrooms, locker rooms, public gyms, recreational facility bathroom and locker rooms, bathrooms at their place of employment, to protect everyone from what might happen? Most agree, those educated, informed on the subject or who simply believe in letting people be to live their lives, be themselves, it’s bigger than the bathroom. And while nationally people, regardless of if they are transgender, appreciate Mr. Krauthammer, a conservative, interjecting some sanity into what has become a multi-state legislative circus throwing transgender persons ringside through all the wrong kind of spotlight. They very much believe this is a big deal, a real issue, a national issue worthy of consideration and no, it shouldn’t simply be left the way it was; now that the cat is out of the bag, as it were, it’s time to deal with it. Though for the opposite reasons largely republicans, republican governors, lawmakers have blown it completely out of proportion, to keep sickos, freaks, pedophiles away from our wives and daughters; one Christian group going so far as to boycott Target for making their business, their bathrooms and fitting rooms all inclusive, transgender friendly. They believe it isn’t about bathrooms today as it wasn’t about drinking fountains in the 1960’s; it is instead about rights, rights of everyone in a democracy, rights, indeed fundamental human dignity historically denied this group of people thanks to our puritan roots and views. Origins of the nicknamed ‘bathroom bills’ suddenly sweeping across the south started in select pockets of the country shortly after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage last summer as language in religious freedom bills allegedly protecting employers from violating their religious principles in order to run their business, providing wedding cakes, florist services and so on to gay couples. The latest round started in North Carolina with their religious freedom bill that extended that religious freedom statute to barring select cities from enacting anti-discrimination ordnances designed to protect the LGBT community, the ‘bathroom’ portion of aforementioned bill forcing people to use the restroom, locker room of their gender assigned at birth, on their birth certificate. While some states like Georgia refused to sign such bills into law, others in the south ran with it, exceeding it by leaps and bounds, including Tennessee proposing a bill that would allow not only Christian counselors to refuse treatment to LGBT patients but Christian doctors to deny unspecified medical services also to LGBT patients. Legislation passed in Mississippi making perfectly legal not providing adoption services to gay couples, allowing religion to impact, influence employer set dress codes to the point some feared it could force women to wear make-up in order to meet gender, femininity norms, but the bathroom restriction, characterized restructuring has absolutely galvanized said local laws into passage. Proponents among them Ted Cruz, Fox News anchors all and nearly every republican governor and lawmaker in the region couch it is keeping girls and women safe. Presidential candidate Cruz fond of repeatedly saying, that a grown man doesn’t belong in the bathroom with a little girl; projecting the fear of rampant, unrestrained sexual assaults, sexual harassment and pedophilia perpetrated against women and children if we allow transgender identifying persons to choose the bathroom, locker room, fitting room that matches their mental, emotional picture of themselves not just the anatomy between their legs is popular among evangelical conservatives, citizens or political office holders. Who never fail to lump transgender individuals in with gay, lesbian and bisexual people, things their religious texts call wrong, an abomination. Though there is more of a medical basis for possible in-utero malfunctions, mistakes or interactions with the mother’s body, like stress, that could be responsible for the transgender outcome of the child than there is medical evidence, science supporting the ‘born gay theory;’ though these children too identify early, at the very least understand early on, many as young as their toddler years, they are different. This and their uphill fight for equality coupled with just what suggested religious freedom bills cover under a thinly veiled disguise of bigotry, what it allows businesses to do to employees, public consumers, not allowed under any other statute, section or segment of the law, owing to it too closely resembling discrimination, has people in effected states and across America not buying it. Stars have already very publically pulled out of concerts and events; Bruce Springsteen refunding ticket prices to would-be concert goers in solidarity with the LGBT community, Ringo Star cancelling a slated June show, Bryan Adams will not go ahead with a planned Mississippi performance, Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas the most recent entertainers to lend their boycott to the fight. A litany of businesses expressing concerns Levi, Dow, G.E., Google, Hyatt Hotels, American Airlines, Disney, Pepsi to name only a few; Pay Pal announced stoppage on a project in North Carolina that would have created 400 jobs and the NBA, while making no changes this season, plans to move the 2017 all-star game if North Carolina continues to target LGBT individuals, in other words if the law stands. The NCAA following suit announcing Wednesday tournaments will not be held in states supporting such laws.

Ratcheting up the creepy factor and the bigotry factor more than motivating these laws but written into their very fabric is their underlying source; beyond their biblical references on moral and immoral sexual behavior, what defines perversion and that every person in the LGBT community exemplifies the negatives in those terms according to said definitions, is what else they are basing obviously discriminatory, provocative, divisive, not to mention costly, legislation on. One Salon.com article credibly suggesting North Carolina overturned its new anti-discrimination law to replace it with their religious freedom law thanks to fervent belief by lawmakers in an urban legend; which urban legend you might ask: “That straight, cisgender men [ones conforming to their birth assigned gender norms] put on dresses and lurk in bathrooms, waiting for women and children to rape.” Above stance the cornerstone for conservative irritation, rankle over pro-transgender initiatives, a stance a majority knew, have long known had no standing in reality, nevertheless readers probably just picked their jaws up off the floor. Certainly the tenets of religion can be dubious especially when tied to guidelines for seemingly benign behaviors, multiplied exponentially when influencing legislative policy, if only effecting which way the populous votes on an issue, forget when it’s the backbone of a law, no matter how well crafted, well intentioned or ultimately beneficial. However, it can be disastrous when it’s clearly not, when logic and sanity seem to have been replaced with a twisted form of religious piety and a strong dose of paranoia. Seriously citizens characterized as the dumbest among the population, children just learning the fundamentals of government can conclude we definitely shouldn’t be basing legal determinations, laws on urban legends can’t we, regardless of the growing number who feel the bible qualifies. Urban legends on par with things that frightened us in grade school, what happens if you turn the lights out and say bloody Mary in a mirror so many times or scrawl 666 in shower steam, put a tooth in Coca-Cola and it will dissolve (there are so many of these they’ve garnered their own category “Colklore”), vanishing hitchhikers, killers in back seats, college partiers who didn’t want to wake their roommate upon returning to their dorm only to, next morning, find a brutally murdered roommate and the message “aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights” written on the wall in what appears to be blood; here is the caliber of thinking used to justify disallowing trans-persons to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity, not necessarily their gender anatomy, suggestion look at the trans-male selfies included in the article and think again. Another Salon piece telling readers Kim Davis’— who could forget her and the drama in Kentucky caused by her unwillingness issue marriage licenses, citing religious freedom and god’s authority, or give up her job—legal team are the individuals, entities behind the rash of ‘bathroom bills’ nationwide highlighting several instances where the Liberty Council, who represented Davis, has had their hands in legislation the author justifiably called the most regressive laws in recent memory. Kim Davis was enough of a national headache, embarrassment the first time around now a remote possibility her legal team is behind what is sweeping the south, well it explains Mississippi. Whose law isn’t just anti-LGBT but a social nightmare poised to take various medical, legal services, employment, housing and business choices away from not singularly LGBT persons but also could bar adoptions from people believed to have had sex before marriage; since one of the religious exemptions defined for counselors, B&B owners, adoption agencies and anyone who wants to claim it is limiting sex to married couples. Could turn away a single mother and her children from daycare because they are a ‘religious institution,’ and she a sinful fornicator, important seeing as a good portion of homeless shelters, food banks, already listed, daycares are faith-based; stands punish a suspected transgender boy in school for his short hair, refusal to wear girls clothes (situations that can happen anyway sans the gender status) or expel students believed to be having sex, suspicion enough no proof actually having to be put forth in charter schools receiving government money, easily graduating to a public school with a pious principal. Mississippi and Tennessee both have a Hippocratic oath problem, a medical ethics problem and will run afoul of the federal government ultimately because you are not allowed to deny medical services to people on the grounds of race, religion, creed, fast becoming sexual orientation/gender identity as well; because, here is what that looks like, videos 2 and 3 below where a man couldn’t get his HIV medication owing to his doctor finding out he was gay and a lesbian couple whose daughter didn’t get the well-baby checkup expected because the pediatrician they’d previously met with, handpicked suddenly didn’t agree with their lifestyle. This is the impending public health threat, not who’s in the bathroom with you or your child, people who can’t get medical care, mental health treatment, living in the streets for a lack of housing, inability to get work, turned from essentials like food predicated on their sexual preference, gender status. All based on a false premise, urban legend aside, because there isn’t an epidemic, despite protestations, of Christian counselors inundated with LGBT clients, Christian doctors inundated with LGBT persons who want fertility treatments exc. and there isn’t, again despite hype, an epidemic of anyone using bathrooms as part of a ploy to satisfy their deviant sexual proclivities, there never has been, least of all transgender persons. Men who wanted to do this would instead just follow a woman or child isolated, alone into a bathroom, assault them and sneak, calmly walk out giving off the perception they left the men’s room, lie and say they were checking for their child, babysitting charge if asked, not don a dress, say I feel trans today and saunter into a women’s restroom. Interesting, the last high profile person to kick up such a fuss over bathrooms was Josh Duggar when he was executive director of the Family Values Research Council and we all know what his problem turned out to be; the Duggar parents who were ever so concerned about what little girls might see in a public restroom they were staunch supporters of ‘bathroom bills’ in their home state of Arkansas but failed to protect their own little girls and an unsuspecting babysitting from their own fondling adolescent son, only putting door locks on bedrooms after it happened, never involving appropriate authorities so the victims and the young perpetrator in this case could both get help. Regardless, the bathroom trope continues never mind how much child molestation, pedophilia is carried out by someone the child knows, trusts, how much sexual harassment, assault, rape, sexual violence happens via someone the victim is at least marginally acquainted with. http://www.salon.com/2016/03/24/hate_is_alive_and_well_in_north_carolina_state_republicans_overturn_an_anti_discrimination_law_because_of_an_urban_legend/

Neither is the timing of North Carolina’s religious freedom bill a coincidence; similar to Indiana’s religious freedom restoration act bolstered by the 2015 Supreme Court decision upholding Hobby Lobby did not have to pay for insurance housing birth control they didn’t religiously agree with where the Hoosier state subsequently went ahead with its bill, North Carolina’s was in direct response to the city of Charlotte passing an anti-discrimination law aimed to protect LGBT individuals from exactly the type of discrimination passed playing on the fears of people who don’t want their wives, sisters, aunts, grandmothers raped in a public toilet and their daughters, kids in general, unduly, deliberately exposed to possible pedophiles. Arizona’s SB1062 in 2014 hedging conservatives bets against the day that state legalized gay marriage preempted by Supreme Court ruling the following year; noble sentiment positively based on a lie, Mississippi, Tennessee following in their footsteps. Financially these states are in for a rude awakening; added to the mounting litany of businesses threatening to pull projects, events out of listed states, California, New York and a host of others have already issued travel bans and the UK has issued warnings associated with the new LGBT discriminatory legislation. North Carolina too already faces an ACLU lawsuit by a trans-man and women rightly pinning their religious freedom law as exposing LGBT people to invidious, spiteful, bordering on malevolent discrimination; a lawsuit they will undoubtedly win or will spark federal government initiatives headed to, you guessed it, the Supreme Court. Hardly surprising on the opposite side of the coin, money won the day in Georgia, Governor Nathan Deal painted as bowing to the pressure of big business greeted with repugnance by many in comments on various stories; greeted with a sense of poetic justice by dissenters who cunningly pointed out it’s no different than the powerful influence the religious set tried to exert embarking down this road in the first place. A year ago dollars and cents coupled with public backlash kept Arkansas out of the fray unlike unfortunate Indiana, to be sure money quickly changed Indiana’s tune, keeping their law but expanding anti-discrimination statutes to include language on sexual orientation, gender identity; however, not before racking up a $60 million price tag for businesses, conventions that exited the state. A recorded two-thirds of Mississippians support the bill now law, according to governor Phil Bryant exactly why it was passed into law, yet not everyone; mirroring entities willing to go on camera excited about the religious freedom bills in Indiana, 2 bakeries in the magnolia state did as well garnering slightly different messages with the same theme: my job is to sell cakes, to ask you how you want it leaving what you do and with whom up to your family, friends, loved ones and the deities you worship. The latter fully cognizant of something his legislatures aren’t, chose to ignore; enacting such a law places a target on all businesses operating in Mississippi, a target he must now overcome to tell his customers no we don’t agree, no we don’t discriminate. Opposers of gender neutral, inclusive bathrooms equally gain nothing signing petitions to boycott large chain stores i.e. Target who end up with more national exposure and curiosity shoppers inevitably buying something while there; remember Chick-Fil-A’s bible thumping owner who suddenly and without provocation went on a tangent about the wrongness of gay marriage, media backlash or no, his franchise still exists, for every boycotter a supporter showed up in their place. When the dust settles somewhere in the near future the real cost will be to the people who needed the jobs not created thanks to the negative national attention, people LGBT or straight, feeling the loss of revenue, the school funding that will disappear leaving Mississippi to be, quoting one commenter, “ well…Mississippi” implying backward, ignorant, behind the times in the worst ways, another cheeky commenter remarked at being surprised they had indoor plumbing ‘destined to succeed from the union’ should Donald Trump get elected, perhaps if he doesn’t get elected. Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation and about to get poorer, and not just in social esthetics, about to lose the only thing it could possibly have going for it, its federal funding for education, the one thing it desperately needs; children ultimately got Tennessee to back down when it was determined the law might interfere with student’s rights to education resulting in the very real possibility their government founding will be pulled, realities soon to come down on North Carolina and others mentioned. Yet it did not stop Tennessee governor Bill Haslam from going full steam ahead with the separate law permitting faith-based counselors turning away their gay patients, patients seeking to accept their sexuality, needing related trauma counseling due to relentless bullying, harassment. Tennessee who simultaneously during the nations bathroom fight also spent state legislative time voting to make the bible the state book then losing that vote; counter to students lobbying their local legislature for a state reptile, amphibian, state fossil exercising their newly learned information about how government works, alongside drawing attention to endangered species, clean air, clean water, global warming, that has bigger, hopefully positive implications, Tennessee’s just detailed bills are a categorical waste of time no one apparently wanted anyway. Then there’s why we know about either instance, the children petitioning their law makers featured in a segment last year by Rachel Maddow showcasing their maturity, perseverance among lawmakers who recounted salamanders were icky and gross, who tried to attach entire sections of the book of genesis onto getting a state fossil or a Kentucky bathroom bill and religious freedom to mention god in school bill tacked onto a purely no nonsense attempt by students to amend their state law thus allowing a student on the selection committee for superintendent. Likewise while lawmakers were apoplectic over bathrooms and desiring to send a heavily symbolic message in what they wanted to be the state book, one of those lawmakers so worried about transgender rapists and pedophiles in bathrooms next to helpless women and defenseless children was cited, wait for it, for sexual harassment of women in his workplace, female persons coming and going, having business with the legislature. Maybe Tennessee should have spent a little more time getting their house in order, policing their own, than worrying about the LGBT community to whom they owe a huge apology right up there with the 34 women subjected to in interview regarding this actual pervert’s behavior. Illustrating republicans will do anything but run a state according to any other criteria than their religion or their pet peeves, quoting a commenter on the Rachel Maddow video: “time to get the grandpas out of government;” can I get an amen?

Going against the panic stricken, farfetched, absolutely ridiculous trope, transgender persons are far more likely to be harassed, physically or sexually assaulted, even raped in a bathroom, should anyone discover their transgender status than be the ones doing the assaulting, harassing or raping; feel awkward, unsafe using either their birth gender’s bathroom or their identity’s bathroom, because of who they are, fearing negative reaction, reprisal should someone work out their gender nonconformity, unless the facilities are designated trans-friendly. Members of the LGBT community, even today in the 21st century, are routinely beat up, assaulted, molested, manhandled or raped usually by ‘good Christian values’ holders who think they can ‘turn them straight’ by doing so, see their fondling, molestation, rape as deserved, likely pleasurable, because they are gay, hinting at the why for the asked change in public bathroom status, acceptance of the reality trans-persons need/use toilets too and would prefer to do so without being further singled out, outed to the world with the, proposed in schools, trans-only option. They need to be protected from ‘normal’ people’s histrionic reaction should their little girl see a trans-woman (born male) using a women’s restroom or abject violence if they find a ‘freak’ standing next to them in the men’s room; one state senator running for attorney general running on the platform catch phrase ‘keep our state straight. Except transgender has nothing to do with gay or straight, heterosexual, homosexual, even bisexual; transgender is a term for people who feel they were born in the wrong body. Law maker ignorance, what if preponderances to the contrary aside, they, transgender individuals, aren’t rapists, pedophiles, perverts of any sort, they aren’t interested in your children apart from educating them, which they aren’t apt to do in a bathroom unless asked a direct, curious question; worth clarification, you won’t/aren’t suddenly being asked to share a bathroom stall with a potentially trans person. Fact going in and coming out of the bathroom, entering, exiting a stall you would be hard pressed to tell them apart from biological men or women respectively; another fact a transgender male (born female) absent surgery is going to continue going into a stall siting down because of their anatomy and a transgender female (born male) desiring to use the women’s restroom isn’t going to have access to a urinal there. Nor are you being asked to share a fitting room stall with a possibly trans-person; they will bring X items into the fitting area, go behind a stall, try on clothes, decide what they want to purchase, walking out fully clothed. Again you would be hard pressed to tell them from their purely biological counterparts rendering moot the horrors of what kids might see argument; leaving locker rooms where, despite majority right wing opinion, transgender females will not be flaunting their giant genitalia for other showering, changing persons to see. Transgender males won’t be advertising they are flat down there; they don’t like their physical anatomy any more than you like looking at it, dislike so intense they go to great lengths to hide their sexual anatomy as opposed to ‘leaving nothing to the imagination.’ Republicans sudden interest in bathrooms, renewed fervor against trans-persons carrying a special ironic twist, particularly replaying Ted Cruz’s remarks about grown men in the bathroom with little girls, considering we’ve had the unisex bathroom for decades. The family bathroom, common in malls, high traffic family oriented, kid centric places, open to mom, or dad, and kids, mom, dad and kids all three was a conservative, parent desired construct so that parents, caregivers could take their opposite gender child, young charges to the toilet safely without sending 5-10 year olds into the men’s room alone, looking like a pervert loitering outside the women’s restroom waiting for your daughter. Same idea behind baby changing stations in men’s rooms enabling single fathers to change their infants, change their child during a daddy and baby day out; tell us Mr. Cruz does that grown man in the bathroom with a little girl scenario still stand when that man is her father, grandfather, uncle, older brother—thought not. Kids are just as much at risk going into their gender appropriate bathroom alone, pedophiles are just as likely to be drawn to the family restroom due to the high volume of children yet there are few instances of either; child abduction, usually by non-custodial parents, relatives, more common relating to bathrooms, none of which has anything to do with transgender people who simply want a safe place to relieve themselves if out in public, something gender conforming people take for granted daily. Supposing opposing conservatives, republicans, parents were right and kids also using bathrooms with trans-persons meant seeing something traumatizing; it’s no more than they will see at home at some point accentually walking in on their parents, siblings using the bathroom, taking a shower, oh gasp, their parents having sex. Nor does it mean they are scarred for life, can even properly interpret what they are seeing, won’t come to their own non-traumatizing conclusion; the 90’s remake of Dennis the Menace saw 5 year old Dennis describing to Mrs. Wilson his parents wrestling around in bed on Sunday morning but liking to be alone when they did that, one toddler who saw her father in the shower (barging into the bathroom like only little kids can) asking why daddy had a tail. A Christian comedian told a joke involving his young son adults recounting their childhood how their mom would was up as far as possible, down as far as possible, handed the washrag to her son telling him to wash possible; his little one not understanding until that night at bath time when he comes running to his father covered in bath bubbles announcing ‘mom just washed possible to hysterical audience laughter. Explaining transgender, something they saw in the bathroom doesn’t have to be a four-star production; when they ask what the unique sign means you tell a 3-5 year old it means everyone can go in there boys and girls. If they see something odd to where you must explain transgender you say their head and their body doesn’t match so it makes them happier to go with what’s in their head; explanations that grow as the child does.

Krauthammer is right in naming this a problem in search of an issue in that, like all religious freedom bills, there was never a reason for their creation, people crying religious rights had other options, there was never a reason for the mad scramble to save everyone from ‘trans bathroom boogiemen;’ the one case they could find was a lie orchestrated by a group bent on repealing transgender inclusivity laws versus the trans-woman shot dead in Texas (call it the Donald Trump effect) stemming from all the unsubstantiated rhetoric spewed about trans-people, by extension the whole LGBT community, naming them perverts, child molesters and a danger to you and yours in the private moments of using the bathroom. The woman (video above) shot in the face, surviving, forced to wear a class eye because she’s trans and dared go into the ladies room, telling stories of trans-women dragged out of restroom and beaten. California school districts that implemented a similar policy 2 years ago to predicted raised eyebrows among conservative groups fearing what would happen if you put a bigger biological male on a girls wrestling team, girls shower of a locker room has reported exactly zero problems, made zero headlines apart from announcing their decision; versus the trans-male Logan 2 years ago in college describing not using the bathroom at his high school, not feeling safe, not daring to use either one and what a difference it would have made to him. Proving where there is need for immediate action is in finally giving transgender persons a safe bathroom, locker room, health club, gym, rec-center facility experience; worst breaches of so called ‘bathroom etiquette’ the same as they always were, walking into a ladies room and seeing someone leaning into the sink talking on their cellphone, being in a stall and hearing someone having a loud conversation on their cellphone, hearing the stream of curses when someone drops their cellphone, i-pod in the toilet, inattentive people barging in on an occupied stall with a broken lock/latch. Common occurrences in public bathrooms across America; and while the ‘caught having sex in a public bathroom’ trope is popular for porn videos it’s frequency is greatly exaggerated, though ironic is how potential LGBT consensual sex there is any different than heterosexual instances greeted with eye rolls and disgusted face not violence, how it differs from the mile high club, people having sex while driving and the 100 other things ‘normal’ people have been caught doing. Taken against the statistics of trans people who’ve been caught engaging in sexual harassment versus republican congressmen in say the last 35 years, trans sexual harassment of people in toilets zero, republican congressman 3 including a guy 1981 receiving oral sex from a staffer (Mississippi) and 2 guys in 2007 soliciting an undercover cop for sex in an airport bathroom in Ohio and Florida respectively; at least now we know how that urban legend got started. Truth inclusive bathroom policies do exactly nothing to heighten the potential chances of harassment, assault, rape; social shift likely to cut down on such activities befalling the strikingly vulnerable LGBT community. Contrast that fearmongering, frenzied hype with it matters to the trans-kid poignantly illustrated in the picture below choosing between getting screamed at for being a boy in the girl’s bathroom or beaten up for being a fairy in the men’s room; it matters when your school is accepting, seems to know what to do regarding a transgender child but fellow parents feel free to bully and berate a 5 year old transitioning, opting their kids out of a children’s book reading of My Princess Boy, written by the mother of a boy who isn’t trans rather gender non-conforming, and a lesson on why it’s not ok to bully people different from you fueled by the ‘bathroom protection’ conservative tagline. It matters to the non-trans kid mistaken for one or mistook for a lesbian, the 8 year old told to conform to gender norms or leave her ‘Christian’ school because she preferred short hair, jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, playing in mud, participating in sports as opposed to skirts, dresses, bows and what, hopscotch? And they don’t support sexual immorality, homosexuality, bestiality or alternative gender identity; except she was showing none of the hallmark signs of gender identity dysphoria, wasn’t old enough to consider if she was a lesbian or not, all appearances pointing to these were merely the clothes she liked. It matters to the kid, teen thought to be a guy only because of their clothes, told to go to the boy’s bathroom by peers, teased with masculine distortions of their name eventually ended giving everyone a safe public bathroom, facility locker room, department store fitting room, changing attitudes one sign at a time. This follows trans-kids fearful of so called bottom surgery either for the pain it could generate or for function, sex reassignment surgeons whose motto is easing dysphoria (the intense dislike felt by trans-persons with non-corresponding parts of their bodies) not necessarily achieving total anatomical correctness. For some, trans-males for instance, breast removal is enough testosterone treatments, for trans-females having the faces and breasts they’ve always dreamed of is satisfying; others need things like testicle removal for women, and a working penis for men. It acknowledges intersex individuals (what we used to call hermaphrodites) and the time they need to essentially choose a gender that best fits them and their unique physiology as well as the extraordinary cost of transition treatments, sex reassignment surgeries not usually covered by insurance, the reality later transgender persons not transitioning in childhood are mandated by therapists, doctors to live as there preferred gender for a year. Glaringly understood, the real fear isn’t bathrooms, predators, it’s about they, conservatives, evangelicals, too many ‘Christians’ are terrified these people will be given rights, be seen first as human beings over their sexual preference, gender identity, will be persons over the abominable filth supposedly taught in their bible, regarded as normal, worthy of witnessing into the kingdom (as any other sinner who lied on a history test, stole their sister’s candy, cheated on their wife or got drunk) instead of shunning them and blustering about their unnatural behavior constantly.

Providing some perspective, Brandon Teena (who was raped and murdered in 1993) inspiration for the movie Boys Don’t Cry is one of the earliest high profile transgender cases and all too indicative of the tragic results of ‘Christian’ supported discrimination, but transgender isn’t even that new. Transgender persons have been living in the closet from the beginning of human kind garnering increased acceptance, tolerance to simply be left alone while living life; Chaz Bono completed his transition 6 years ago, Caitlyn Jenner’s very public transition is a year old, Jazz arguably the face of transgender youth is now 15 and been out since the age of 5. Further not everyone is getting it wrong and not exclusively in open minded, progressive, metropolitan, high population, urban areas; a judge ruled a transgender Virginia student’s lawsuit against his school over a ‘bathroom’ policy could continue noting the previous judge ignored title IX provisions entitling every student to an education and accommodations to make that possible. A trans high school girl was accepted onto her cheerleading squad and given a choice which uniform to wear, choosing the male uniform out of respect for her mother and time needed for adjustment, another won the right to be considered for prom king and is fighting to use the men’s room at his high school. Invoking perspective once more, a cornerstone of professing Christians is witnessing, trying to bring people into the faith hypocritically they are supposed to be witnessing, trying to bring these ‘wayward’ LGBT people into the kingdom, and no witnessing doesn’t mean singing church bus songs about who’s going to hell the way the secular crowd might sing 99 bottles of beer, holding signs up outside court buildings that say Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve spitting on them as they go out, come in, standing on the outskirts of a funeral with a sign that says god hates America/ underneath it says god hates gays. Doesn’t include doubling down on factually inevident hysteria to ‘prove’ your point, demonstrate your religious devotion, purity, tossing aside children because they like X type of clothes; although nowhere in my bible do I remember reading commandments about not wearing pants, make-up, dancing, cutting your hair if you were female. Plus only in their twisted ideology does wearing jeans, t-shirts, sneakers and short hair make you a lesbian, do those clothing and style choices constitute either homosexuality, sexual immorality, i.e. fornication, adultery or bestiality, especially when applied to an 8-year-old. To the protesting citizen, below the opening paragraph, proclaiming what about Christian protections, Christians need protections; no, Christians in America don’t need protection from their non-sense idea of persecution. Christians in America need to get acquainted with any actual persecution permeating the planet; barring that read their bibles and absorb what people like the apostle Paul went through for their faith, for spreading that faith. Ironic Ted Cruz spent his days leading up to his campaign, announcing his candidacy calling our attention to Christian, faith based persecution around the globe to then in the heat of primary season spout on and on about men who don’t belong in bathrooms with little girls—as if that was ever what we were really talking about. No, the Christians in the middle east need protection from persecution, the people in north Africa need protection from persecution, those Coptic Christians marched onto a beach, beheaded by ISIS on video and the thousands to millions like them in hostile places around the world need protection, in communist China, North Korea knowing identifying as Christian will lead to a prison sentence, reading. possessing a bible will likely get you beaten, questioned by police, thrown in jail, the Indonesian girls literally beheaded for professing Christ this is true persecution; here we fight about bathrooms. Here is the purported wussification of America we need to be worried about promptly ignored by the family values trumpeters except when they want to shove every girl into a dress then tell her wearing make-up is a sin, on one hand badger about femininity then accuse her of being a slut for her outfit. The same family values screamers who want to tell a man how to be macho, whose foreign policies literally think the only kind of national strength worth mentioning is in military might and who we can go to war with this week then blame the rapists, perverts, seral killers on bad parents who didn’t spank their children not the mixed messages, not the body phobic nature of non-conversations about sex, sexual desire and puberty. Instead of fixing this, delving for concrete interpretations of what the bible says for Christians genuinely wanting to do the right thing, we go ape guano over bathrooms wondering why the world is so messed up. Have to love the signage at a counter protest against LGBT discrimination, at least in terms of who uses what bathroom. Please Don’t Use My God’s Name To Justify Your Discrimination.

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